Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Stevenson's Emma Morgan a finalist in national competition

Stevenson Junior Emma Morgan was recently selected as one of six finalists in MIT's nationwide THINK scholarship competition. The MIT team reviewed papers submitted by over 100 top high school
students from across the country. Of these entries, six including Emma’s were selected
as finalists, and three will be awarded the opportunity to work with MIT faculty and
students to develop the idea in the laboratory. Final selections will be announced late
this week.

As one of the six finalists, Emma won an expenses-paid trip to MIT in Cambridge,
Massachusetts to present her paper, Artificial Musculature: A New
Approach to the Linear Solenoid, to the THINK team (a panel of MIT professors, alumni,
and students) and was interviewed extensively by the selection team on Wednesday.

The competition consisted of three parts: a written 10-page paper with concept
drawings describing the idea, a 25-minute personal presentation at MIT, and an
extensive interview with the selection team.

Each paper proposed an innovative idea in science, engineering, or math that was in
the early concept stage and had yet to be developed. Emma's inspiration for her paper
came while she was trying to build an autonomous robot toy and discovered existing
solutions were not very good at simulating the linear movement created by a natural
muscle contraction. (Submitted by Elena Mueller)

Congratulations, Emma! Pretty impressive! It will never cease to amaze me to see what young people are capable of achieving when given enough love, attention and resources!